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Situationist Space Author(s): Thomas F. McDonough Source: October, Vol. 67 (Winter, 1994), pp.

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Situationist Space*

THOMASF. McDONOUGH

Proletarian revolution is the critique of whichindividuhuman geography through als and communitieshave to createplaces no and eventssuitablefor the appropriation, but their total their labor, of longerjust of history. -Guy Debord, Society oftheSpectacle I. The Naked City

In the summer of 1957 the MIBI ("Mouvement Internationale pour un an avant-garde Bauhaus Imaginiste"), group composed of variousex-Cobraartists odd map of Paris entitled and theirItalian counterparts,' published a singularly TheNakedCity, the creationof whichwas creditedto G [uy]-E [rnest]Debord. The in of this was fact one of the last actions taken by the MIBI, publication map letsince thisgroup had recently decided to join withthe French "Internationale triste"-of which Debord was the most importantmember-and the English the "Internationale situa"Psychogeographical Societyof London" in orderto form tionniste."2 of manyof the concerns However,the map acted both as a summary sharedbythe threeorganizations, around the questionof theconstrucparticularly
This paper was originallyconceived for a colloquium on European Art 1945-68, taughtby * RobertLubar at the Institute of Fine Arts;earlyresearchwithmycolleague Maura Reillywas instrumental in formulatingits parameters.A year at the Independent Study Program of the Whitney Museum of AmericanArtand the opportunity to workwithBenjamin Buchloh and RosalynDeutsche were the greatest and challenge in thisproject'srealization.Finally, sources of inspiration I would like to thankmyreaderson October's editorialboard and especiallyHal Fosterfortheircriticalcomments and assistance. 1. On the MIBI, see Peter Wollen, "The Situationist NewLeft Review 174 (1989), International," pp. 87-90. The official of the foundingis toldinJean-FranCois 2. de l'Internationale situMartos,Histoire history ationniste (Paris: Editions Gerard Lebovici, 1989), pp. 9-65. See Peter Wollen, "The Situationist International," pp. 87-90. OCTOBER 67, Winter F. McDonough. 1994,pp. 59-77. ? 1994 Thomas

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Debord. The Naked City.1957. Guy

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to be of thedirections tionand perceptionof urbanspace, and as a demonstration in the the Internationale situationniste following years.Surprisingly explored by little attentionhas been accorded this document, despite the fact that it has situationbecome an almosticonic image of the earlyyearsof the Internationale in several of themajorbooks niste,appearingon dustjacketsand as an illustration and articles on thegroup. is composed of nineteencut-outsectionsof a map of Paris, TheNakedCity in red. Its subin arrows black whichare linkedbydirectional ink, printed printed of the hypothesis of psychogeographical titledescribesthe map as an "illustration whichusually turntables." byDebord, the term"plaque tournante," Appropriated with a track turntable(a circularrevolving denotes a railway running platform of here describesthe function used forturning locomotives), along its diameter, Each the arrowslinkingthe segmentsof the psychogeographical segment map. The arrows describe"thespontaneousturns of atmosphere." has a different "unity in disregard of thesesurroundings takenbya subjectmovingthrough of direction Thus these "spontathe usefulconnectionsthatordinarily governhis conduct."3 and of orientation" thatlinkvarious "unitiesof atmosphere" neous inclinations dictate the path taken by the given subject correspond to the action of the the orientation of the of track and dictates whichlinksvarioussegments turntable, locomotive.The implicationsof analogizingthe subject to a locomotiveare, of the locomotive's course,foundedon a certainambiguity: althoughself-propelled, the for the as within strict is determined Situationists, boundaries, just path is restricted image of the bythe instrumentalized subject'sfreedomof movement city propagatedunder the reignof capital.4 It is immediatelyapparent that The Naked Citydid not functionlike an du in the Carte when itsantecedents is confirmed ordinary map. This observation of Madeleine de Scuderyare examined.Cited in a 1959 articlein thejourTendre had been created three hundred years the Carte nal Internationale situationniste, of of her salon.5It uses the metaphor earlierin 1653 byScuderyand the members feaof a love affair. the spatial Keygeographical journeyto tracepossiblehistories momentsor emotions (e.g., the marksignificant tures,throughpatheticfallacy, as an antecedentof The diversion "lac d'indiff6rence"). Positingthisaristocratic but despite theirverydifferent is another instanceof appropriation, NakedCity the key principleof the psychogeographic did illustrate map. originsthe Carte
side of TheNakedCity: Froma textprintedon the reverse 3. Jorn,"Quatriimeexperiencedu Asger de d la fondation de Guy Debord)," reprintedin Documents MIBI (Plans psychogbographiques relatifs situationniste: l'Internationale 1948-1957,ed. G6rardBerreby (Paris:EditionsAllia,1985), p. 535. The term"plaque tournante" 4. pun on "tableautournant," mayalso be an intendedor unintended to magicalor seance-like whichrefers (I would like to thankBenjaminBuchloh operationsof trickery. out thispossibility.) forpointing romaine histoire The map was publishedin 1654 in her Cildie: 1973). 5. (Geneva: SlatkineReprints, 3 (December situationniste It is cited in "L'urbanismeunitaireA la fin des annbes 50," Internationale de la terre et (Paris:Centre figures 1959), pp. 11-16. On the map, see Claude Filteau,"Tendre,"in Cartes GeorgesPompidou, 1980), pp. 205-7.

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Tendre. 1653.

Madeleine deScudry. Cartede

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That is, both maps are figuredas narratives ratherthan as tools of "universal The users of these asked to choose a directionality and to were knowledge." maps there was The chosen overcomeobstacles, no although reading "proper"reading. of one among manypossibilities(of the course of the love was a performance affairin the Cartedu Tendre; in The of the crossingof the urban environment NakedCity) and would remaincontingent. The subject'sachievement of a position of mastery, thegoal of narrative's was thereby resolution, problematized. The odd title,renderedin brightred capitals,was also an appropriation of thename of an Americanfilm noirof 1948. TheNakedCity set was a detective story in New Yorkand filmedin a documentary Based on a story style. byMalvinWald, the screenplay was a collaborationbetween the author and AlbertMaltz.6(The titleof the film,however, is itself an appropriation: entitledHomicide, originally the movie'sname was changed to matchthe titleof a book of crimephotographs to thisHollywoodfilm of byWeegee, publishedin 1945.)7Althoughthe reference the previousdecade mayat first its purpose becomes clear when seem arbitrary, one examinesthe structure of the movie.As ParkerTylerexplainsit in TheThree In NakedCity it is ManhattanIsland and its streets that and landmarks are starred. The social body is thus,through laid architectural symbol, bare ("naked").... The factthatthevastly a structure of complex great

6. AlbertMaltz and MalvinWald, TheNakedCity SouthernIllinois (Carbondale and Edwardsville: in 1908,was a mainstay of the Americanliterary left Press,1979). Maltz,born in Brooklyn University the 1930s;in 1941 he movedto Los Angeles, wherehe workedon several throughout movies-generally eitherdetective films(e.g., This GunforHire,1942) or wartime propaganda movies (e.g., Prideofthe on Un-American forhis Activities Marines, 1945). In 1947 he was called beforethe House Committee involvement in the 1930s;his refusal withthe Communist to testify led to his being named one of party the "Hollywood Ten." TheNakedCity to federal was his last filmbeforebeing committed jail in 1950. See JackSalzman,Albert Maltz (Boston: G. K. Hall & Co., 1978) fora fullbiography, which,however, Maltz'syearsin Hollywood. slights 7. Arthur (New York:Da Capo Press,1975). Fellig (Weegee), NakedCity

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in one sense,is a supremeobstacleto the police detectives at the city, same time that it providestinyclues as important as certainobscure are to the trainedeyeof a doctor.8 physical symptoms servesas a usefulanalogyforthe "spontaneousturns of Justas the termturntable direction"indicatedon the map, so the titleTheNakedCity servesas an analogy forthe function of the map as a whole. It is no longerthe streets and landmarks one quickly in the of Manhattan, but those of Paris thatare "starred": recognizes, of the du Les the Gare cut-outfragments, de Halles, parts Jardin Luxembourg, The of bare" the social the the etc. act Pantheon, body through Lyon, "laying in thevery is implicit of the map. Freed from structure city'sarchitectural symbols the "usefulconnections that ordinarily govern theirconduct,"the users could in a street, of the sharpdivision of a "the sudden change atmosphere experience into one the of least of distinct climates; resistance-wholly city psychological path unrelatedto the unevennessof the terrain-to be followedby the casual stroller; or repellant, of certainplaces."9So wroteDebord in his the character, attractive to a Critiqueof Urban Geography"("Introduction "Introduction 'l une critique de la geographieurbaine") of 1955, twoyearsbeforethe publicationof his verof Paris,like thatof New Yorkin sion of TheNakedCity. For Debord the structure offered"tiny clues"the movie,was also a "greatobstacle" thatsimultaneously a of a but to future clues to the solution were no crime, longer only they in of a "sum of life its of presentation possibilities." organization of an alreadyis a collage based on the appropriation TheNakedCity Visually, of of a Paris. It is of nineteen document, map fragments composed existing of in "Introduction to a in the 1955 this that Debord, Critique light significant "theproductionof had discussed"a renovatedcartography": Urban Geography," of a sort that, certainmovements maps may help to clarify psychogeographical are whollyinsubordinateto the usual directives."10 while surelynot gratuitous, determinethe habitual patternsthroughwhich These influencesor attractions is of such influences The the residents complete"insubordination" city. negotiate of the mostpopular map of Paris, realized in TheNakedCity by the fragmenting the Plan deParis,intoa stateof illegibility. of the Plan deParis.The latteris structhe structure TheNakedCity subverts whichacts turedin a wayanalogous to the mode of discoursecalled "description," as ifall were natureand presentit as redundantrepetition, to "maskitssuccessive presentat the same time.It is as ifthe object [here,the cityof Paris] were always
rev.ed. (South Brunswick, Film:TheArt,the Facesofthe 8. ParkerTyler,The Three Dream,theCult, A. S. Barnes,1967), p. 97. N.J.: Nues6 A une critiquede la geographieurbaine,"Les Levres 9. Debord, "Introduction Guy-Ernest in the Situationist (September 1955). Trans. as "Introductionto a Critique of Urban Geography," Calif.: Bureau of Public Secrets,1981), ed. and trans.Ken Knabb (Berkeley, International Anthology, pp. 5-8. 10. Ibid., p. 7.

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Situationist Space

63

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offered to fullview."11 The Parisof the Plan exists in alreadyvisually present, fully a timeless this timelessness is in the total present; imagedspatially map's (illusory) revelation of itsobject.That is, usersof the map see the entirecitylaid out before theireyes.However,such an omnipresent viewis seen fromnowhere:"itis in fact to this It is a impossible occupy space. pointof space whereno man can see: a no not outside but This is the traditional conditionof nowhere, place space utopic."12 the map; in linguistic it is pure structure without individuation terms, ("langue") ("parole"). If the Plan de Paris is structured which is predicated on a by description, model of seeing thatconstitutes an exhibitionof "the knowledgeof an order of mode of discourse structures TheNakedCity. It places,"13then a verydifferent is predicated on a model of moving,on "spatializingactions," known to the Situationists as ditives;ratherthan presenting the cityfroma totalizing point of around psychogeographichubs. view,it organizes movementsmetaphorically These movements constitute narratives thatare openlydiachronic, unlikedescription'sfalse"timelessness."14 TheNakedCity makesit clear,in itsfragmenting of the of urban that the is conventional, descriptive representation space, city onlyexperienced in timeby a concrete,situatedsubject,as a passage fromone "unity of to another,not as the objectof a totalized atmosphere" perception. II. TheNaked and SocialGeography City But the narrative mode does not fullyaccount for the appearance of Debord's map. First,TheNakedCity does not cover all of Paris,as is expected of have no logical relationto one another; any "good" map. Second, the fragments orientedaccordingto north-south or east-west axes, and the theyare not properly distancebetweenthemdoes not correspondto the actual distanceseparating the various locales. (Consider, for instance,the distance separatingtheJardindes Plantesfrom itsannex,whichare contiguousin thePlan deParis.) Debord explains these features in his article of 1956, "Theory of the Derive."The fragments only representcertainareas of Paris because the map's of unitiesof atmosphere, of theirmain componentsand of goal is "thediscovery theirspatial localization."15 not all areas in the citylend themselves Presumably names partsof the city(certain "unito such spatial localization; TheNakedCity
11. Louis Marin, Utopics:Spatial Play, trans. Robert A. Vollrath (Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: HumanitiesPress,1984), p. 202. 12. Ibid., p. 207. of 13. Michel de Certeau, ThePractice ofEveryday Life,trans.StevenRendall (Berkeley: University California Press,1984), p. 119. Louis Marin,Utopics, 14. maynot be the ideal termto describethe pp. 201-2. Although"narrative" it does conveythe sense thatthe map is a representation structure of TheNakedCity, of an event-or a sum of events, more properly, actionsof the dirive. i.e., the spatializing 15. Nues9 (November1956). Translatedas Debord, "Th(orie de la derive,"Les Levres Guy-Ernest International "Theoryof the DIrive,"in the Situationist Anthology, p. 53.

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ties of atmosphere") instead of the whole ("Paris") thatincludes them.Through this synecdochic procedure, totalities like the Paris of the Plan de Paris are like the componentsof Debord's map.16 replaced byfragments But beyond the "discovery"of such unities of atmosphere, the map also The psychodescribes"theirchiefaxes of passage, theirexitsand theirdefenses." allow one to assert "distances thatmay of the subtitle turntables map's geographical a map's approximations."'17 conclude from whatone might be quite out of scale with become blankareas in TheNakedCity, Such distances gaps thatseparatethevarious of atmosphere," various "unities of the between The linkages fragments. suppression to the for schematic directional arrows, corresponds procedure called except in the continuum" and "retaining of a spatial "asyndeton": process "openinggaps TheNakedCity throughsynecdocheand asyndetondisruptsthe Structuring of the Plan de Paris.The citymap is revealedas a representation: falsecontinuity the productionof a discourseabout the city.This discourseis predicatedon the called the reductionof appearance of optical coherence,on whatHenri Lefebvre realm."19 This abstract the cityto "theundifferentiated stateof the visible-readable terrain of the that the the conflicts space homogenizes produce capitalistspace; had evictedthe Plan de Parisis thatof HaussmannizedParis,wheremodernization class fromitstraditional quartersin the centerof the cityand then segreworking class lines. But abstractspace is riddledwithcontradictions; the along gated city itsacts of divisionand exclusion mostimportantly, it not onlyconceals difference, of difference. and differences are not eradicated,they are productive Distinctions are onlyhidden in the homogeneousspace of the Plan. TheNakedCity bringsthese distinctions and differences out into the open, the violence of its fragmentation in constructing the real violenceinvolved the cityof the Plan. suggesting In thismanner TheNakedCity In France, engagesthe discourseof geography. academic geography (institutionalizedin the university) was a product of the in the Franco-Prussian 1870s; in the wake of the defeatsuffered War,a numberof historians around Paul Vidal de la Blanche foundedwhatmaybe called a "spatial a "scienceof landscape" whose goal Vidalian geography considereditself history." was taxonomic description;but, as in the Plan de Paris,"description" cannot be considered an ideologically neutralterm.By presuming an already"given"object of study (country,region, city),this geographyhypostatized concepts as transhistorical that were actually the products of particular historical relations. visual criteriathat Moreover,the geographer's interestin descriptionprivileges offered to fullview," a viewthatis moredepend on the illusionof an object "fully
16. Michel de Certeau,Practice Life, ofEveryday p. 101. 17. Situationist International Debord, "Thboriede la d6rive," Guy-Ernest Anthology, p. 53. 18. Michel de Certeau,Practice of Life, Everyday p. 101. 19. Henri Lefebvre, The Productionof Space, trans. Donald Nicholson-Smith, (Oxford and 1991), pp. 355-56. Cambridge,Mass.: Blackwell,

only selected parts of it."18

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over gendered as masculine,fromwhich a feminizedspace is perceived. (Vidal the landscape,which"offers itself spoke of the eye "embracing" up" to view.)20 in Vidal's methodology But thereis a curious contradiction of description: his on the of the of his landscapes reliance visual object study, despite presence cannot actually be seen. That is, he is not so much concernedwithan observable, froma "synconcretespace, but witha typical, abstract space thatis constructed mobilizationof cliche" in the formof various exoticisms, theticand derivative The abstract and enumerations of local floraand fauna.21 references to literature, of is the source of the abstract academic homogeneous, space of space geography thePlan deParis. In making The Naked City, however,Debord was not simplyrefutingan of academic tradition geography; he was also, unconsciously, eighty-year-old was a termfirst of a the social reasserting geography."Social geography" goals and geographerforwhomgeograused byElisee Reclus,a communard, socialist, of permanences," in space."UnlikeVidal's "geography phywould become "history forReclus geography was "notan immutable thing.It is made, it is remade every Ratherthan explaining it is modifiedby men's actions."22 day; at each instant, like Vidal, as the consequence of inevitablesocial processes spatial organization, of or "personality" as in the "individuality" (mediatedbydeterministic metaphors, a region),Reclus theorizedspace as a social productand thusas inseparablefrom of society.Two dissimilarconcepts of societywere being prothe functioning in these two geographies.On the one hand, Vidal desocializesthe social, posed in which "formsof metropolitan determinism" an "environmental employing in which social life"are the adaptationsof "human populationsto environments On the other hand, certain processes tend to remain constantand invariable." Reclus understood space as a sociallyproduced category-as an arena "where itself.23 and as a social relation are reproduced" social relations Debord,developing of urban space and social similarideas, would also comprehendthisindivisibility
Ross in The is indebtedto the workof Kristin This discussionof academic and social geography 20. of MinnesotaPress, and the Paris Commune (Minneapolis:University Emergence ofSocialSpace:Rimbaud in filmnoir) is also gen1988), pp. 85-97. The space of narrative (e.g., of concealmentand discovery Cinema(Bloomington: Indiana Semiotics, dered; see Teresa de Lauretis, AliceDoesn't:Feminism, 16, no. 3 Cinema," Screen Press, 1984) and Laura Mulvey,"Visual Pleasure and Narrative University of film (1975), pp. 6-18. To the extentthatDebord's Naked Citymaybe comparedwiththe narrative thereare obviously however noir (as the map's titleindicates),itspointofviewmustbe problematized; in the subjects constructedby these respective"narratives." differences (Perhaps thisis significant Debord's map are reached.) of thistermfordescribing of the usefulness wherethe limits 21. Ross,Emergence ofSocialSpace, pp. 86-87. 22. Reclus,see GaryS. Dunbar,ElisieReclus, Historian of Quoted in ibid.,p. 91. For more on Elisbe The Nature(Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books, 1978) and Marie Fleming, The Geography ofFreedom: Reclus (Montrealand NewYork:Black Rose Books, 1988). Odyssey ofElisie October 47 (Winter See RosalynDeutsche,"Uneven Development:Public Artin New YorkCity," 23. trans.Alan Sheridan A Marxist 1988), p. 24. See also Manuel Castells, The UrbanQuestion: Approach, and theUrban (New Question (Cambridge,Mass.: MIT Press,1977) and PeterR. Saunders,SocialTheory York:Holmes & Meier,1981).

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The residential units ofthe in the12th district "Wattignies" arrondissement ofParis,from de Lauwe, "Paris and the Chombart Parisian Agglomeration."
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relations;but withthe experience of psychogeographic space could exploration, of theserelations also be the arena forthe contestation an active constructhrough tionofnew "unities ofatmosphere." Debord neverwroteabout Elisee Reclus, but he did writeabout a French whose workof the early1950s was veryconcernedwith"social space" sociologist de and withurbanism: Chombart de Lauwe. Debord quotes Chombart Paul-Henry Lauwe's "Paris and the Parisian Agglomeration"(1952) in his "Theory of the Derive"of 1956.24 TheNakedCity Even more significant, adopts the formof a map thatappears in Chombartde Lauwe's report.This map, made byLouis Couvreur (a researcher along withChombartde Lauwe on the urban studiesthat working to the 1952 report),depicts"the residential contributed unitsof the 'Wattignies' in the 12tharrondissement of Paris."25 district In the 1952 reportChombartde Lauwe definesthe elementary unit of the the as The as residential unit called its the or, inhabitants, city by quarter quarter. is "a group of streets, or even of houses,withmore or less clearly definedborders, centerofvariablesize and, usually, othersortsof pointsof includinga commercial attraction.The borders of a neighborhood are usually marginal (dangerous) frontierareas."26Its is importantthat these quarters are not "given" urban definedand logically linkedone to the other.Rather,Chombart districts, clearly in "the de Lauwe statesthatthey"revealthemselves ... to the attentive observer" behaviorof the inhabitants, theirturnof phrase."27 Clearlydependent on these ideas, Debord also alteredthemin the fabrication of the psychogeographic map. For example,the notion of the quarteras the basic unit of urban structure is held in common by both Debord and Chombart
Chombartde Lauwe, "Pariset I'agglomeration 24. Paul-Henry parisienne"(1952), in Paris:Essaisde 1952-1964 (Paris:Les editionsouvrieres, 1965), pp. 19-101. For Debord, see "Theoryof the sociologie, International Derive,"Situationist Anthology, p. 50. This dependence is noted in passingby Wollen in "The Situationist International," p. 80, n. 40. Chombart de Lauwe, "Pariset l'agglomeration Paul-Henry parisienne," pp. 60-61. 25. 26. Ibid.,p. 67. Ibid. 27.

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de Lauwe; forboth it is the site of social lifeand possessesa distinct character. writes thateach quarter (Chombartde Lauwe, in a tellingnaturalizing metaphor, has itsown "physiognomy.") However,Chombartde Lauwe definesthe quarteras a "residentialunit,"givingit a preeminently functionalrole, whereas Debord definesit as a "unity of atmosphere," which provesto be a much less empirical idea. Chombart de Lauwe ultimately relies on the notion that quarterscan be theirexistence proven,throughmore or less traditional research "discovered," methods.Space is thought of here as a contextor containerforsocial relationsan idea that hypostatizes both space and the social. But space does not simply reflect social relations; it is constitutive of and is constituted by them.That is, the the spatialform quarteris not onlythe expressionof the needs of itsinhabitants, of theirsocial relations. As Rosalyn Deutschehas written, urbanspace is rather also of social relationsand as itself such a relation."28 "an arena forthe reproduction Debord's psychogeography in TheNakedCity and its graphicrepresentation take thisinto account,constructing ratherthan "discovering" "unitiesof atmosphere" them like physical, geographicalphenomena thatexistin a spatial context.The denies space as contextand insteadincorporates NakedCity space as an elementof social practice.Ratherthan a containersuitablefordescription, space becomes enactedbysocialgroups. partofa process:theprocessof "inhabiting" In thisDebord takesup a positionsome distancefromChombartde Lauwe, but one thatis quite close to certainideas developed by Henri Lefebvre laterin the 1960s.Lefebvre in the quarteras the essential was also interested unitof social life. Like Debord, he chose to study"not the ossified socio-ecological forms but the tendenciesof theurbanunits, (whichare, bydefinition, inapprehensible), their inertia,their explosion, their reorganization,in a word, the practice of ratherthan the ecologyof the habitat."29 is here 'inhabiting,' AlthoughLefebvre to the Chicago School of urban ecology,his distancefromChombart de referring model of urban sociologyis equally clear. Againstsuch a Lauwe's functionalist called "experimodel he positsthe notion of "inhabiting"-what the Situationists as willbe seen, mapped in TheNakedCity. mentalbehavior"--apractice, III. TheNakedCity and Cognitive Mapping Debord's map images a fragmented citythatis both the resultof multiple of formof a radicalcritiqueof this a and the restructurings capitalist society very of is relatedto and disIts a of society. figuration type inhabiting simultaneously tinctfromFredricJameson's "aestheticof cognitivemapping," perhaps most or the CulturalLogic describedin his classicarticle,"Postmodernism, succinctly
ed. Brian 28. Rosler, byMartha RosalynDeutsche, "Alternative Space," in If YouLivedHere:A Project Wallis (Seattle:BayPress,1991), p. 55. del'IAURP7 (1967). et vie de quartier, Henri Lefebvre, 29. Paris,"Cahiers "Quartier

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of Late Capitalism." of urban space Jameson concludes that the fragmentations and the social body create the need formaps thatwould "enable a situational representation on the part of the individual subject to that vaster and properly whichis the ensembleof the city'sstructure as a whole."30 unrepresentable totality These maps would allow theirusers to "again begin to grasp our positioningas individualand collective whichis subjectsand regaina capacityto act and struggle at presentneutralized our as well our as social confusion."31 by spatial CertainlyDebord also saw the "spatial confusion" of the modern cityas of the violence inherentin capitalism's of the space of symptomatic configuration the productionand reproductionof its social relations.TheNakedCity, however, refuses the statusof a regulative ideal, whichis the goal of the cognitive adamantly theformer is a map. If the latteris a means toward"a capacityto act and struggle," In itsvery siteof struggle formit contests itself. a dominantconstruction of urban space as homogeneous,appropriating pieces of the Plan deParisand makingthem and divisions of the public realm. speak of the radicaldiscontinuities The cognitive function relieson the productionof a spatial map's normative thatdesiresto assumewhatRosalynDeutsche has called "a commandimagability of representation."32 The danger in thisposition ing positionon the battleground is thatthe positionality of the viewerand relationsof representation are sacrificed in order to obtain a "coherent," "logical"viewof the city.Debord's map, on the other hand, foregrounds its contingency as a narrative itself by structuring open to numerous readings.It openly acknowledgesitselfas the trace of practicesof ratherthan as an imaginary resolutionof real contradictions. Likewise, inhabiting its representation of the cityonly existsas a series of relationships, as in those between TheNakedCity and the Plan deParis,or betweenfragmentation and unity, or betweennarrative and description. and SocialSpace IV. TheDerive Debord wrote in Society that under advanced capitalism of theSpectacle thatwas directly lived has moved away into a representation." 33As "everything formulated the corollaryto thisin spatialdiscoursewas thatdirectly byLefebvre, lived space ("representational space") had moved awayinto the space of the conceived and the perceived ("representations of space"). Social, concretespace had been completely denied in favorof mental,abstract comspace: "the free spaceofthe
30. FredricJameson,"Postmodernism, or the CulturalLogic of Late Capitalism," NewLeft Review 146 (1984), p. 90. See his more developed argumentin "CognitiveMapping," in Marxismand the eds. CaryNelson and LawrenceGrossberg(Urbana and Chicago: University of Interpretation ofCulture, IllinoisPress,1988), pp. 347-57. 31. Jameson,"Postmodernism, or the CulturalLogic of Late Capitalism," p. 92. 32. 28, no. 6 (February1990), pp. 21-23. An expanded RosalynDeutsche, "Men in Space," Artforum versionof thisarticleappeared as "BoysTown,"Society and Space9 (1991), pp. 5-30. 33. (Detroit:Black & Red, 1977), p. 1. GuyDebord, Society ofthe Spectacle

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dominatedcapitalist However,thisthoroughly modity."34 space was not seamless; in fact,it was full of contradictions, hidden only by a homogenizingideology. These contradictions made possible the struggle formulated by the Situationist the of and the construction of spaces that project: exploration psychogeography accommodateddifference. Situationist their behavior," "experimental practiceof in were to dominated meant contest of the retreat "inhabiting," operations space the directly lived into the realm of representation, and therebyto contestthe of the societyof the spectacleitself. organization The move fromabstractspace to social space can be seen in a condensed formin the different attitudes takentowardaerial photographs by Chombartde In Chombartde Lauwe's 1952 reporthe reproduces Lauwe and the Situationists. an aerial photographof the citycenterof Parisalong withitsimmediatesuburbs. of certainstrucHe writes thatsuch photographspermita betterunderstanding kinds of urban textures." He between "the different tures and of the contrasts textures of the bourgeois quarterson the one hand (the 7th cites the different and 17th arrondissements),and on the other hand, the "popular" quarters the former the latter characterized (Bellevilleand Menilmontant), by regularity, one may deduce the respective by disorder. From these visual characteristics of each quarter.35 conditionsof lifeand social practices Chombart de Lauwe's praise of the aerial photographas a research tool raises the question asked by Michel de Certeau in ThePractice ofEveryday Life:"Is more than a the immense texturology spread out before one's eyes anything at The elevationprovidedby "the overflight an optical artifact?" representation, the sociologist into a voyeurof sorts,who not only high altitude" transforms his hidden vantagepoint,butwho also enjoys enjoysthe eroticsof seeing all from drivesunitein mutually all. The scopic and epistemophilic the eroticsof knowing of theaerial of thecity as seen in the "vueverticale" seekingpleasurein the totality a But thiswhole is imaginary, photograph(or of the Plan deParisforthatmatter). ... mustdisentanglehimself created by thisfiction and "the voyeur-god fiction, and makehimself alien to them."36 from themurky intertwining dailybehaviors this alienation, that the Situationists It is preciselythis disentanglement, to Chombartde withinthe city.In contrast refusedby locatingculturalstruggle Lauwe's faithin the knowledgeprovidedbythe spectacularized image of the city In the as seen in the aerial photograph,theyrefutedthisvoyeuristic viewpoint. Gilles Ivain's "Formulary first issue of Internationale situationniste, accompanying for a New Urbanism," there was an aerial photograph very similar to that discussed by Chombart de Lauwe; however, this photograph was not used for ascertaining the structureof the city. Instead it bore the caption "New to take termindicatedthe refusal The military Theater of Operationsin Culture."
34. 35. 36. Ibid., p. 166. Chombartde Lauwe, "Pariset l'agglomeration parisienne," pp. 33-34. Paul-Henry Michel de Certeau,Practice of Everyday Life, pp. 92-93.

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the From Internationale situationniste 1, June1958.

D'OPtAA THWATRE INOUVEAU CULTUR LA DANS

VRAD PAiA VC )LA ISOSLUTON MVS ANCENWITPER&"4ANC(EN1, D-S -?,4 DISSLUTION

TE SITIFATIlON

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Situationist Space

73

in the aerial up the disengagedpositionimpliedin Chombartde Lauwe's interest this the Situationists for viewpoint, exactly the photograph. Rejecting opted that the at a behaviors" distance. Withthe "murky intertwining sociologistplaced as their "theater of their tactic was the drive (driftor city operations" primary reflected the that of the which user of pedestrian'sexperience, drifting), everyday the city. The derive took place literally in the sense of below the threshold of visibility, what is visible to the As Debord describes it,the drive being beyond gaze. voyeur's replaced the figureof the voyeurwiththatof the walker:"One or more persons committedto the demive abandon, for an undefinedperiod of time,the motives generallyadmitted for action and movement,their relations, their labor and leisure activities, to the attractions of the terrainand the abandoning themselves In allowingthemselves encountersproperto it."37 "to be drawnbythe solicitations of the terrain," totalizations of the eye personson the deive escaped the imaginary and insteadchose a kindof blindness.38 constitutes an urban praclife,the derive Operatingin the realm of everyday tice thatmustbe distinguished, from"classicnotionsof thejourney and the first, was not simply an walk,"as Debord noted in "Theoryof the Derive."The derive the Baudelairean strolling of the "man in updatingof nineteenth-century fldnerie, the crowd."This is not to saythattheydo not share some characteristics: both the and the person on the derive move among the crowdwithoutbeing one fldneur withit. They are both "alreadyout of place," neitherbourgeois nor proletariat.39 But whereasthefldneur's a kindof aristocratic ambiguousclass positionrepresents holdover(a positionthatis ultimately recuperated bythe bourgeoisie),the person on the driveconsciously to suspend class allegiancesforsome time.This attempts serves a dual purpose: it allows for a heightened receptivity to the "psychogeoof the cityas well as contributing to the sense of "depaysement,"40 graphicalrelief" a characteristic of the ludic sphere. For the Situationists,however,the derive was distinguishedfromfldnerie attitude towardthe hegemonicscopic regimeof modernity. primarily byitscritical

37. trans.in Situationist International Debord, "Theoryof the D6rive," Guy-Ernest Anthology, p. 50. 38. This use of the term"blindness" is to be distinguished fromthe paradoxical blindnessof totalizationthatde Certeau discusses.Here it is meant to indicatethe Situationists' of the problematization as formulated in the nineteenth scopic regimeof modernity century. 39. See WalterBenjamin, "On Some Motifsin Baudelaire," in Illuminations, ed. Hannah Arendt, trans.HarryZohn (New York:Schocken Books, 1968), pp. 172-73. 40. on the d&rive. it "Depays6ment"is a termoftenfound in early Situationist writings Literally, means "takenout of one's element"or "misled."The Situationist use of the termseems to be in the same sense thatLevi-Strauss calls anthropology a "technique du depaysiment" in his essay"The Concept of Archaismin Anthropology" trans.ClaireJacobson and Brooke Grundfest (in Structural Anthropology, of thisessaynote, Schoepf [New York:Basic Books, 1963], pp. 117 and 118, n. 23). As the translators the termrefers to "theconscious cultivation of an attitude of marginality toward by the anthropologist all cultures, is cultivated includinghis [sic] own."The same attitude bypersonson the derive.

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74

OCTOBER

As GriseldaPollockdescribeshim (thefldneur, unlikethe participants of the derive, masculine type), the flineuris characterizedby a detached, was an exclusively the privilege or freedomto move about observinggaze: "The fldneur symbolizes thesights but neverinteracting, the public arenas of the cityobserving consuming ... The embodies the a but flineur acknowledged gaze. through controlling rarely is and erotic."41 It is these classof which both covetous precisely gaze modernity in itsrefusal of the controland gender-specific thatthe dMive critiques privileges as no conceived of The and its are "spontaneously city quarters longer ling gaze. visibleobjects" but are posited as social constructions throughwhich the derive them. and disrupting whilesimultaneously fragmenting negotiates also located the drivein relationto surrealist The Situationists experiments Debord cited "the celebratedaimlessstroll" in space. In his articleon the dMrive in May 1924 byAragon,Breton,Morise,and Vitrac;the course of this undertaken had embraced was determinedby chance procedures. The surrealists journey an emblem of freedomin chance as the encounterwiththe totally heterogenous, an otherwisereifiedsociety.Clearly this type ofjourney was resonant for the For example, in 1955 Debord discusseda similartripthata friend Situationists. withthe help of a map of the cityof the Hartz regionin Germany, took "through HoweverDebord would followedthe directions."42 whichhe blindly London from of mistrust for an "insufficient the surrealist on to critique experiments go chance." Perhaps, paralleling Peter Bfirger's argument,Debord feltthat these diversions had degenerated from protestsagainst bourgeois society's instruas such. Withoutsuch mentalizationto protestsagainst means-end rationality occurrencesand chance be derived from can no however, meaning rationality, Given of expectation."43 attitude is placed in a positionof a "passive the individual or of the uncanny, were not interested thatthe Situationists onlyin the discovery of urban but in the transformation urban terrain, the makingstrangeof familiar chance is understandable. of surrealist space, theirmistrust was a tacticalpractice, The blindnessof the people on the dmrive dependent of chance. nor factors of the neither upon city consumption spectacular upon the user of the citywho confronts of the everyday This blindness,characteristic the rational as opaque, was consciously environment adopted in order to subvert sense of the The dirive was a tacticin the classic military cityof pure visuality. term:"a calculated action determined Or, in by the absence of a properlocus."44 as a Debord greatly theorist a military thewordsof Clausewitz, admired,the derive

GriseldaPollock,Vision 41. (London and NewYork:Routledge,1988), p. 67. &Difference trans.in Situationist 42. Debord, "Introductionto a Critique of Urban Geography," Guy-Ernest International p. 7. Anthology, trans. Michael Shaw (Minneapolis: Universityof 43. Peter Bfirger,Theory of theAvant-Garde, MinnesotaPress,1984), p. 66. Michelde Certeau,Practice 44. Life, of pp. 36-37. Everyday

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tacticwas an "artof theweak."45 It is a game (Debord writes thatthe dirive entailed thattakesplace in the strategic of "a ludic-constructive behavior")46 space the city: on it and "... it mustplayon and witha terrain imposed organizedbythe law of a It does not have the means to to at a distance,in a posiitself foreignpower. keep tion of withdrawal, and it self-collection: is a maneuver 'within the foresight, The enemy'sfield of vision,' as von Bulow put it, and withinenemyterritory."47 dfrive therefore does not possessa space of itsown,but takesplace in a space that is imposed bycapitalism in theformof urban planning. The d*rive thisurban space in the contextofwhatmaybe called appropriates a "pedestrian is to theurban system whatthe speech act,"in that"theact ofwalking of the city, the speech act is to language."48 Through the conscious appropriation Situationistsforce it to speak of the divisions and fragmentations masked by abstract thatenable politicalstruggle overthe production space, the contradictions of space to existat all. The fragmented as actualizedin the derive, space of the city, is precisely whatis imaged in TheNakedCity, withitsinvention of quarters, itsshiftand itslargewhiteblanksof nonactualizedspace, the ing about of spatialrelations, whole segmentsof Paris that are made to disappear, or ratherthat never even existedin the first as a pedestrianspeech act is a reinstatement of place. The derive the "use value of space" in a society that privileges the "exchange value of In thismannerthe derive is a politicaluse space"-that is, itsexistenceas property. of space, constructing new social relationsthrough"ludic-constructive behavior."
V. TheD'rive and Representations ofPublic Space

This contestation over the signification of public space leaves unaddressed the question of the verystatusof this space in the postwarperiod. It has been withthe increasingly argued that, rapid growth throughthe 1950s of mass media, the formerly contestedrealm of the streets was evacuated.It was after all precisely technologiesof the home-first radio, then television-thatwere the conduitsfor to domesticatefantasy. In thisview,the derive was spectacularsociety'sattempts doomed to being an anachronism.Indeed, some textson the derive and urban sentimental. For example,in the bulletinPotlatch in 1954 an space seem curiously

45. See Karl von Clausewitz,On War,trans.M. Howard and P. Paret (Princeton,N.J.:Princeton Press,1976). University 46. Debord, "Theoryof the D1rive,"trans.in Situationist International Guy-Ernest p. 50. Anthology, The ludic natureof the dirive is indebted toJohan Huizinga's HomoLudens;a study in ofthe play-element culture into Frenchin (Boston: Beacon Press,1950), a textoriginally publishedin 1937 and translated 1951. Huizinga argued thathumansare definednot merely or utilitarian behavior, by theirfunctional but also by theirneed for play; his ideas were of great interestto NorthernEuropean Situationists Constantand AsgerJorn, who were in close contactwithDebord. On Huizinga and the Situationists, see Wollen,"The Situationist International," p. 89. 47. Michel de Certeau,Practice of Everyday Life, p. 37. 48. Ibid., pp. 97-99.

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articlemournsthe destruction of the rue Sauvage in the 13tharrondissement: "we lamentthe disappearanceof a thoroughfare little and yetmore alivethan known, and its lights."Despite the qualificationthat "we were not the Champs-Elys6es it is easy to agree withBenjamin Buchloh interestedin the charmsof ruins,"49 the domesticinterior, the street withthe riseof technologies forcontrolling that, "would increasinglyqualify as an artisticattraction,in the manner that all evacuated locations (ruins) and obsolete technologiesappearing to be exempt of fromor abandoned by the logic of the commodityand the instrumentality fails to that had so Such a desire view, however, recognize qualified."50 engineered has come to because spectacle-culture been fully the cityhas not evacuated.Simply left in street is not therefore uncontamithe the be administered home, primarily not so much from The "evacuated" was the ... "exempt city nated-quite opposite. as it was made into the site of mythic the logic of the commodity" discourse,a It appeared as a divided discourse whollycontingentupon spectacle-culture. of the sign of its meanin of the the sense semiological emptying sign-division In this the cityas sign-which of an constitutive myth.51 operation operation ing, and is turned of itsown-is capturedbymyth a richness, a history" has "a fullness, be for able to a into "an empty, form,"52 appropriated floating signifier parasitical variousideologicalends. But its meaning does not disappear; ratherit is put at a distance,held in as it was or "filled" reserve.If the public realm is no longer "hypersignificant"53 that it nonethelessmustbe acknowledged beforethe adventof spectacle-culture, is itsaestheticrole as "ruin"reproducespower.The "hyposignificant" cityof myth is put back into play in harmlessform appropriated to various ends: its history as entertainmentin, for example, touristattractionswhere "public" space is to a Critique forvery"private" commodified consumption.(In his "Introduction as as that"populardrugas repugnant Debord citestourism of Urban Geography," of Parisis one obviousexamThe "museumization" on credit.")54 sportsor buying have a verydefinite ple of this process. As stated earlier,these representations
ideological character: ".... the city is submitted to the norms of an abstract space

in Documents 7 (3 August1954); reprinted la rue Sauvage,"Potlatch "On d6truit 49. i lafondarelatifs 176. This articlewas followedup in "La formed'une ville change situationniste: tionde l'Internationale in Documents Potlatch 25 (26January 1956); reprinted relatifs, pp. 234-35. plus vite," 56 (Spring October 50. D&collage Affichiste," Benjamin H. D. Buchloh, "FromDetail to Fragment: 1991), p. 100. See the essay"Myth 51. (New York:NoondayPress,1972), pp. Mythologies Today" in Roland Barthes, between1954 and 1956,precisely 109-59. Note thatthe essayscollectedhere werewritten contempoof the dirive. articulation theoretical raneouswiththe Situationists' 52. Ibid., pp. 117-18. A term adopted from Francoise Choay; cf. her "S6miologie et urbanisme," L'Architecture 53. 132 (1967). d'Aujourd'hui 54. Debord, "Introductionto a Critique of Urban Geography,"trans.in Situationist Guy-Ernest International p. 7. Anthology,

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to the constitution of a politicalorganizationwhichcorrespondsfairly precisely the State-external to the dailyactivity of the citizensand to theirattachment to the places theylivein."55 The Situationists' towardthe "charmsof ruins"was preciselyan antipathy that these "normsof abstractspace" that constructthe public acknowledgment domain as evacuated were not "charming" at all. But these representations were in fact,the coherence of the city'ssignification not imperviousto contestation; was constantly to break down. This was due to the factthat,despite threatening the spectacle's hegemonic power, the production of the cityremained a social instrumentalized. to the projections practice,one thatcould not be fully Contrary of spectacularsociety, whichposited the cityas a natural,timeless it existed form, formed and the integration of different onlyas "an environment bythe interaction The derive as a practiceof the cityreappropriated practices."56 public space from the realm of myth, it to its fullness, its richness,and its history. As an restoring tool in the Situationists' overwho would speak through the city important struggle during the 1950s, the deive was an attemptto change the meaning of the city And thisstruggle was conducted,not in through changingthewayitwas inhabited. the name of a new cognitive a moreconcretecollecmap,but in orderto construct tivespace, a space whose potentialities remainedopen-endedforall participants in the "ludic-constructive" narrative of a newurban terrain.

55. in TheCity and the RaymondLedrut,"Speech and the Silence of the City," Sign:An Introduction to Urban eds. M. Gottdiener and AlexandrosPh. Lagopoulos (New York:Columbia University Semiotics, Press,1986), p. 125. 56. Ibid., p. 122.

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